Archive

29 October 1998

Dancing with Strangers

In Perth in 1963, notorious killer, Eric Edgar Cooke is about to go to the gallows after a series of gruesome killings which have held the city in a vice of terror for many months.

With only minutes left to live before he faces the noose, he apparently has something weighing heavily on his mind. He reiterates a confession he's made before, insisting that he was responsible for yet another murder.

The additional victim claimed by Cooke is 17-year-old Rosemary Anderson who died from her injuries after being deliberately hit by a car.

But someone has already been tried, convicted and imprisoned for killing Rosemary - her boyfriend, John Button, himself only 19 years old.

Thirty-five years later a highly regarded Perth journalist, Estelle Blackburn meets John Button's brother at a dance. That chance encounter sets Estelle off on a long and exhaustive process of investigation that will turn her own life upside down.

What she painstakingly uncovers is the subject of a special extended edition of Australian Story called "Dancing with Strangers" to be broadcast at 8.30 pm on October 29.

It's the story of one woman's relentless determination to expose and prove a miscarriage of justice. But it is also the story of a shocking legacy of grief that has endured in several families as a consequence of the terrible events of the summer of 1963.

Also interviewed for the story is former High Court Judge, Sir Ronald Wilson who, as Chief Crown Prosecutor, conducted the case against John Button. He has become reacquainted with John Button and tells Australian Story that if there is new evidence he would support a review of the case. If the verdict is proven unsafe, he also believes John Button should be pardoned.